Pascale Auber & the Ruritanian Riddle

XXV My Brother

The light was on in the hallway that led behind the stairs to the back parlour, and I did not notice my brother at first. Just inside the door is an alcove where we keep a few coats on hooks, and an umbrella stand. A flight of stairs rises up from one side of this alcove, and Blaise was seated halfway up, his elbows on his knees and his chin resting on his hands.

For twins, Blaise and I do not look particularly alike. We both have dark hair and dark eyes, but so does our mother, and our younger brother, so that means little. Where my hair is wavy, Blaise's is perfectly straight. I have a creamy complexion; Blaise is pallid. More germane to the current issue, however, Blaise also differs from me in that he is much better at rendering a gaze positively soul-piercing.

"Good evening, dear brother," I said in the most innocent tones I could muster.

"I thought you were working today, Pascale."

"I was. You know I can't discuss my work."

"You were working," Blaise gestured towards my beautiful, cream-coloured dress, "in a ballgown?"

"This isn't a ball-gown. It is a dinner dress. You should be happy that I was called upon merely to go to dinner. Dinner is a reasonably safe experience." I thought for a moment of Simpelstur and my fall from the airship earlier in the day. "Trust me. Everything was perfectly safe and perfectly proper."

"Yes, because returning home in the middle of the night is an ideal example of the height of decorous behaviour," Blaise said dryly.

"And I suppose if you went out for dinner with Miss Cartimandua Silverstar – famed soprano, star of the stage and concert hall, darling of the Aosta theatre – if you were out with her, you'd be home by, say, seven-thirty?" Blaise is intelligent but foolish; he cannot pick a single profession and attempts to balance two while working himself half to death. The reason for his inability to dedicate himself to one master is that working evenings at the theatre allows him to live vaguely within the orbit of Miss Silverstar. As such, I admit making this statement was what sportsmen call 'a low blow', but I was feeling particularly provoked.

"Leave Mandy out of this."

"Just because your calf love is completely unrequited does not mean that you can vent your jealousy on me, especially as I was out for business, not pleasure."

"Are you sure it was not that the business was a pleasure?"

"Blaise Auber, I do not care for your tone, nor for your insinuations! I was serving my country, which is more than you can say with your silly scientific games – quasi-aetheric phenomena, pah! – or your discordant trombone playing!"

Blaise looked annoyed. "My work at the university is important, and as the Aosta sees fit to pay  me for my trombone-playing, it is clearly not discordant!"

"Your work is important? So is mine!" I retorted. "Blaise, be fair. Sometimes being out late at night is part of my job. It can't be helped."

"It is a hateful job, Pascale," my brother replied, grimacing.

"I know." I bent and kissed his forehead. "But I do a lot of good, I think."

"Perhaps," Blaise shrugged, "Perhaps not. Either way, I do wish that it was a job that did not have to be done."

I thought for a moment of Dantès. "Normally, I would disagree with you about that," I said.

Then I pushed past him and continued up the stairs, making my way to bed.